Call on the Turkmen Government to free Gaspar Matalaev

May 2018: The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency has formally banned the importation of Turkmen cotton into the U.S. following the submission of a petition by our partner, the Cotton Campaign. This is a significant step forward and we hope that international pressure will expedite Gaspar’s release. To read the full press release from the Cotton Campaign, click here.

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On October 4, 2016, human rights activist Gaspar Matalaev was arrested in Turkmenistan, Central Asia. He has reportedly been subjected to torture by electric current to force him to confess to false charges of minor fraud. Repeated promises of his release have been broken.1

Gaspar is a prominent human rights activist in the country, where he has been monitoring the state-orchestrated forced labor system in the Turkmenistan cotton fields. His work has helped draw attention to the Turkmen Government’s annual mobilization of tens of thousands of citizens forced to pick cotton under threat of punishment.

Gaspar’s arrest came two days after he published a report on the extensive use of forced labor and child labor in the 2016 cotton harvest and one day after the Minister of National Security was severely reprimanded by the Turkmen President at a State Security Council meeting for not properly repressing activism in the country.2 It is clear Gaspar’s arrest was politically motivated.

This is not the first time the Turkmenistan Government has prosecuted human rights activists on politically motivated charges. This year, the United Nations Human Rights Committee has called on the Turkmen Government to end the harassment, torture and detention of those “seeking to document forced labour in the cotton harvest such as Gaspar Matalaev”.3It is now up to the international community to speak out and demand action on behalf of the courageous monitors like Gaspar who put themselves at risk to help others.

Please sign our petition to demand the Turkmen Government immediately release Gaspar and allow him to continue his work in safety.

The petition number includes 11,255 signatures collected by our partner, International Labor Rights Forum.

May 2018: The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency has formally banned the importation of Turkmen cotton into the U.S. following the submission of a petition by our partner, the Cotton Campaign. This is a significant step forward and we hope that international pressure will expedite Gaspar’s release. To read the full press release from the Cotton Campaign, click here.

January 2018: Gaspar’s case has been highlighted most recently in Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) 2018 World Report, and had also been mentioned by the UN Human Rights Committee in its concluding observations on its report of Turkmenistan in April 2017. In May 2017, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention also expressed its concern over Gaspar’s detention. You can read the HRW 2018 report here, the UN Human Rights Committee report here, and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention’s full letter here.

September 2017: With the international spotlight on Turkmenistan ahead of the 2017 Ashgabat Asian Games, we wrote to Turkmen ambassadors in Germany, France, Belgium, UK and USA calling for their support in releasing Gaspar. Read our full letter here, written in collaboration with our partners in the Cotton Campaign.

27 June 2017: The publication of the annual Trafficking in Person (TIP) report by the US State Department highlighted the mistreatment of Gaspar by the Turkmen authorities. The TIP report is an influential assessment of governments based on their efforts to acknowledge and combat human trafficking, and its inclusion of Gaspar’s case is an important step in drawing the attention of the international community to the injustice of his case. Click here to read more.

10 May: In collaboration with our partners, the Cotton Campaign, we sent a letter to the Turkmen President requesting Gaspar’s immediate release from detention. Click here to read the letter.

We need more heroes and heroines to draw attention of the world to humanity’s cruelty. Sadly, these class of humans are in the minor minorities in many countries. Where they exist, these elite souls certainly do not belong in prisons or other forms of arrest. They belong in every parliament and government palaces. We need to have and hear more of them. Release our Hero Gaspar now!

Call on the Turkmen Government to free Gaspar Matalaev

I call on you to immediately release Mr. Gaspar Matalaev from detention and allow him to continue his work as an independent monitor on the use of forced labor in the annual cotton harvest in Turkmenistan.

Mr. Matalaev was detained by Turkmenistan police on October 4, 2016 and reportedly subjected to torture by electric current to force a confession to charges of ‘fraud’. Though the charges against him are minor, the Turkmen authorities have refused to release Mr. Matalaev, despite allowing others charged with the same offense to go free.

We call on you to release Mr. Matalaev as a matter of urgency and to work with civil society actors like him to end forced labor in your cotton industry.

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